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About Kelly K @ Dances with Chaos

Kelly K has learned the five steps to surviving of motherhood:
1) Don't get mad. Grab your camera. 2) Take a photograph. 3) Blog about it. 4) Laugh. 5) Repeat.
She shares these tales at Dances with Chaos in order to preserve what tiny amount of sanity remains.
You can also find her on her sister blog, Writing with Chaos (www.writingwithchaos.com) sharing memoir and engaging in her true love: fiction writing.
It's cheaper than therapy.

I love all of the small details you included – specifically the TV shows you watched (Jem!). I clearly remember when I got Chicken Pox in 9th grade and the joy of watching The Cutting Edge in my parents’ king sized bed 🙂

I missed my 8th grade Valentine Dance because of chicken pox. It was devastating. The boy I had a crush on lent me his jacket that day. I was feverish already but didn’t know I had chicken pox. The chills were crazy. My mom was a teacher at my school and saw me wearing his jacket, although it was way too hot for one at an open campus school in Texas. She sent me home. The dance was that night. I slept, dreaming about dancing with my crush, hearing my friend’s words in my ears before I left,

“Don’t worry! I’ll keep an eye on him for you and tell you what girls were flirting with him.”

I love this telling of being sick. You covered it fully in such a short span of words. You learned that important lesson of being careful what you wish for at an early age, but here you show me that rather than just telling me. This worked incredibly well.

Now, I’m going to try to return the concrit so take it or leave it. 😉

“My little sister slept in the next room, covered in tiny rose bumps, three days into her quarantine.”—tiny rose bumps didn’t work for me. I envisioned little flowers bumping out all over her body. Perhaps something like “rose-colored bumps” would work better.

“It smelled funny.” What does funny smell like? Maybe it smelled like chalk clapped from the classroom erasers or the sterile smell of an empty refrigerator left on between tenants?

And this? “I raged, the demonic heat unrelenting, pushing me past the brink of reason.” I LOVED. Demonic heat…so very descriptive, and a fitting one too.

I loved this memory. I don’t remember my round with chickenpox other than the daytime tv I think gave me my first taste of soap opera love.

Oh man, I was five and I wanted the chicken pox too, I licked the lolly pop of my aunt who had it on purpose. I think my mom was horrified though, so all four of us little ones came down with it over easter. !! your story brought back memories and I liked how you listed them in order, I totally got that, it was perfect and to the point.

I got chicken pox over Easter and my mom and aunts got all of us together so that we could all have it at once. I don’t remember a lot about the actual chicken pox, but I do remember not being able to wear my dress to church on Easter Sunday. It was so pretty and I was so upset that I couldn’t wear it.

Oprah!?! You watched Oprah when you had the chicken pox? You’re so young. 😉

I really enjoyed this, but at certain points I honestly thought you were combining illnesses. The youth and chicken pox, the older teen, perhaps, and another illness. The not waking mom and dad, that part I thought you were older, and maybe older still when watching all those shows. That’s my only concrit, that I lost something in the flow there with the breaks. It also might have been this line, “Too lethargic to move.” as it doesn’t strike me as a childhood memory kind of word.

As someone who lived off soap operas my entire life, I appreciate the experience of being home from school to watch them, and I appreciate the bath memory. To me it smelled like oatmeal powder. Ah, Aveeno!

I’m laughing at your Oprah reference with the rest of the “mature” crowd – pretty sure she was still a Chicago local when I came down with the chicken pox. I don’t remember much from my experience, except that my brother gave them to me, and he had them much, much worse – bwahaaaa.

Reminds me of a quick-write one of my students wrote. She wrote how she liked being sick. The way she described it–staying home, extra attention from mom, chicken soup, warm blankets, melting into the couch–made it seem inviting.

Overall, this was a fun one. We all have chickenpox stories – I still have a scar above my eyebrow where my mother ripped off a scab while pulling off my hat. I was 4. And my sister was 10 and she had it REALLY bad, in her throat, in between her toes, etc.

What confused me was how old you were. You said you didn’t get it at a party when you were 5, but then you don’t say how old you were when you DID get it. Obviously, old enough to consider your parents’ feelings and to get in a shower by yourself. Just a few words somewhere putting you in time would help give context.

And it should be your mother came home with Valentines, no apostrophe as it’s not a possessive.

Between the toes? Ouch. I didn’t break out much and didn’t itch as much as sister – I had the insane fever for days though. Once it broke, I wanted to go back to school. I wasn’t used to “feeling fine” and being forced to stay home.

I mentioned in the last line, my 3rd grade “chickenpox” party for Valentine’s day, just to clear up the age thing. I would’ve gone into more detail, but would’ve been over word count.

Ooops on the non-possessive Valentine. Thanks.

I

The name is vaguely familiar, but I never watched him. Or I did and had no idea he was Merv Griffin.

Oh lordy, the chicken pox! I was a swimmer in the way back, so I NEVER got perfect attendance because our meets started on Friday nights and I had to leave school early (I was a very competitive child LOL). But when I found out the school awarded a TROPHY to the kids with perfect attendance that became my goal for second grade. I’d do anything for a trophy…did I mention I was competitive? Then, one week before the last day of class, on a bright Saturday afternoon in the back of my parents forest-green Pinto, I complained to my mom about the three itchy “mosquito bites” on my tummy. Mom and Dad exchanged the “oh crap” look. I got very seriously ill, and spent the next two weeks in bed, and another two weeks before I could really get around well on my own. I slept with my little sister (who kicked like a mule in her sleep), so she would get them too – and she never did. And, to add insult to injury, I didn’t get my dang TROPHY!

I loved the way you described your temper tantrum – it’s so easy to picture a sweet little girl erupting in volcanic rage!

See, aren’t you glad you wrote this? I loved how you delivered the story. And you captured the voice of a child very well.
I liked the line “It smelled funny.”…that’s exactly how a child would have described it!

And I SO DON’T MISS day time tv. You just brought back memories of total boredom from days home sick. Thanks.